FireWire

Seagate have announced their third-generation of portable hard-drives, the Seagate GoFlex Storage System, which debuts a system of interchangeable connection adapters that can be used to turn a regular USB 2.0 HDD into a USB 3.0, eSATA or FireWire 800 drive. Meanwhile there are a selection of special cables and docks, which can add automatic backup functionality (using Memeo technology), network connectivity, HD media playback or desktop dock convenience.

Data Robotics' first Drobo model surprised a fair few people; the company billed their external storage array as an "intelligent data robot", making RAID-style redundancy if not glamorous then at least appealing. When we reviewed the first-gen model all the way back on October 2008, we felt a few qualms at its relatively high price tag but had little doubt over the security of our data. Now, with their range much enlarged, we've one of Data Robotics newest 'bots on the testbench, the Drobo S. Adding an extra drive bay to the original model, plus a few less obvious tweaks, is the Drobo S the droid you're looking for?

Western Digital have outed a new portable hard-drive, the My Passport Studio, and like the My Book Studio before it they've slapped on a super-frugal E Ink panel to show drive status details. Available in 320GB, 500GB and 640GB capacities, the My Passport Studio has both FireWire 800 and USB 2.0 connections and comes ready formatted for use with a Mac.

If you aren’t running a Mac computer odds are that you have no FireWire 800 ports on your machine. For some professional users who work with lots of video FireWire 800 ports is required meaning you need some sort of add-in card to get them.